Institutions are looking to find the best learning technologies to deliver anatomy curricula to diverse student populations, often working with financial and time-based constraints. Visualization techniques, particularly the widespread use of virtual reality headsets, have made once-impossible learning experiences possible. This thesis explores the effect of different learning modalities (virtual reality headset, computer screen, and 3D-printed models) and environments (clinical context or context-free) on knowledge acquisition and learning experiences for a pelvic floor anatomy module. We investigated how these factors, along with mental rotation ability and stereoacuity, impact various aspects of learning, including performance on anatomy tests, perceived workload (measured using the NASA Task Load Index), cybersickness (measured using the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire), and engagement during learning (measured using the User Engagement Scale). Significant interactions were found between modality and environment for test scores and workload, a significant main effect of modality and environment for cybersickness, and a significant main effect of modality for engagement. Importantly, though significant differences were found between modalities and environments, participants reported concerningly high levels of workload and cybersickness across all conditions. High levels of engagement were also reported across all learning conditions. The lack of meaningful differences between intervention groups emphasizes the importance of curricular design over the implementation of new technologies and the need to be critical of the impression that a one-size-fits-all solution exists. Theories of cognitive load, constructivism, syncretion, visuospatial ability, cybersickness, and embodied learning in the context of technology-enhanced anatomy education are discussed as the foundation upon which design decisions should be made. A multi-faceted approach focused on aligning learning objectives with learning activities is outlined as a means of driving more impactful research and improving anatomy education. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Institutions are looking to find the best learning technologies to deliver anatomy curricula to diverse student populations, often working with financial and time-based constraints. Visualization techniques have been at the forefront of this innovation, and the widespread use of virtual reality headsets has made once-impossible learning experiences achievable. This thesis explores the effect of different learning modalities and environments on learning with a pelvic floor anatomy module. We investigated how these factors, along with mental rotation ability and stereoacuity impact test performance and the perception of workload, cybersickness, and engagement. The results emphasize the importance of curricular design over the implementation of new technologies and the need to be critical of the impression that a one-size-fits-all solution exists.

What constitutes a quality solution to an authentic task from industry? This study seeks to address this question through the examination of two expert solutions to an authentic engineering task used in the Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering curriculum at Oregon State University. The two solutions were generated by two teams of expert engineers with varying backgrounds. The experts solved a process development problem situated in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Transcripts of audio recordings, design notebooks, and other work products were analyzed to identify common features in the two expert solutions. The study found that both experts placed a large focus on information gathering, modeling before experimentation, and fine tuning of the process. These solution features define a core set of expert competencies and facilitate understanding of high quality solution traits. An additional goal of the study was to identify competencies unique to each expert solution. It was observed that the expert teams used different proportions of first principles modeling and statistical experimental design to solve the problem. This proportion was dependent on the problem solver’s background and therefore should be expected to vary among student solutions. Implications of the work regarding instruction and assessment in engineering education are discussed. / Graduation date: 2012

The interplay between learning and technology is a growing field that is often referred to as Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). Within this context, learning applications are software components that are useful for learning purposes, such as textbook replacements, information gathering tools, communication and collaboration tools, knowledge modeling tools, rich lab environments that allows experiments etc. When developing learning applications, the choice of technology depends on many factors. For instance, who and how many the intended end-users are, if there are requirements to support in-application collaboration, platform restrictions, the expertise of the developers, requirements to inter-operate with other systems or applications etc. This thesis provides guidance on a how to develop learning applications based on Semantic Web technology. The focus on Semantic Web technology is due to its basic design that allows expression of knowledge at the web scale. It also allows keeping track of who said what, providing subjective expressions in parallel with more authoritative knowledge sources. The intended readers of this thesis include practitioners such as software architects and developers as well as researchers in TEL and other related fields. The empirical part of the this thesis is the experience from the design and development of two learning applications and two supporting frameworks. The first learning application is the web application Confolio/EntryScape which allows users to collect files and online material into personal and shared portfolios. The second learning application is the desktop application Conzilla, which provides a way to create and navigate a landscape of interconnected concepts. Based upon the experience of design and development as well as on more theoretical considerations outlined in this thesis, three major obstacles have been identified: The first obstacle is: lack of non-expert and user friendly solutions for presenting and editing Semantic Web data that is not hard-coded to use a specific vocabulary. The thesis presents five categories of tools that support editing and presentation of RDF. The thesis also discusses a concrete software solution together with a list of the most important features that have crystallized during six major iterations of development. The second obstacle is: lack of solutions that can handle both private and collaborative management of resources together with related Semantic Web data. The thesis presents five requirements for a reusable read/write RDF framework and a concrete software solution that fulfills these requirements. A list of features that have appeared during four major iterations of development is also presented. The third obstacle is: lack of recommendations for how to build learning applications based on Semantic Web technology. The thesis presents seven recommendations in terms of architectures, technologies, frameworks, and type of application to focus on. In addition, as part of the preparatory work to overcome the three obstacles, the thesis also presents a categorization of applications and a derivation of the relations between standards, technologies and application types. / <p>QC 20121105</p>

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With the increasing access to mobile devices in developing countries, the number of pilots and projects embracing mobile devices as learning tools is also growing. The important role it can play in improving education is also positively received within education communities. But, providing a successful mobile learning service is still significantly challenging. The considerable problems arise due to existing pedagogical, technological, political, social and cultural challenges and there has been a shortage of research concerning how to deploy and sustain this technology in a resource constrained educational environment. There are studies mainly conducted in sub-Saharan countries, India, and Latin America, which provide some guidelines for incorporating technology in the existing educational process. However, considering the contextual differences between these regions and other countries in Asia, such as Nepal, it requires a broader study in its own challenging socio-cultural context. In response to this difficulty, the aims of this exploratory research work are to study the distinct challenges of schools’ education in Nepal and evaluate the use of open-source devices to provide offline access to learning materials in order to recommend a sustainable mobile learning model. The developmental study was conducted in University of West London in order to assess the feasibility of these devices. The main study in Nepal explored i) the overall challenges to education in the challenging learning environment of schools with limited or no access to ICT, ii) how ICT might be helping teaching and learning in the rural public schools, and iii) how an offline mobile learning solution based on the open source platforms may facilitate English language teaching and learning. Data collection primarily involved interviews, questionnaires, observations and supplemented by other methods. This thesis presents the sustainable model for deploying and supporting mobile technology for education, which is based on the findings emerging from completed exploratory studies in Nepal. It highlights all the aspects that need to be addressed to ensure sustainability. However, to translate this understanding to a design is a complex challenge. For a mobile learning solution to be used in such challenging learning contexts, the need is to develop simple and innovative solutions that provide access to relevant digital learning resources and train teachers to embed technology in education. This thesis discusses these findings, limitations and presents implications for the design of future mobile learning in the context of Nepal.

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yes / The delivery of higher education, as with many aspects of society in general, is becoming increasingly shaped by the availability of the Internet in our everyday lives. Associated with the growth in Internet availability, web 2.0 technologies have become increasingly popular over recent years, especially with the `Google Generation¿, a term used to describe those brought up with the Internet. The exploitation of such tools has led to the widespread take-up of social networking sites, the growth in blogging and twitter, and the adoption of wikis and social media sites for the sharing and publishing of content. The opportunities introduced by technology enhanced learning (TEL), and in particular web 2.0 tools and applications, are now starting to attract significant interest from within the academic community. The lecture begins by describing the advances in digital communication technologies that are allowing new approaches to teaching and learning to be investigated. A review of how technology is currently employed in higher education then follows, before proceeding to outline the latest developments associated with web 2.0 tools and applications and the opportunities these present. A review of significant findings from within the academic research community is then given. To conclude, an assessment of what are the likely drivers that are creating a need for change within the higher education sector is presented before outlining the implications of introducing TEL from the perspectives of both students and teaching staff.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis was to evaluate the impact of uncertainty on test-enhanced learning. A within-groups experiment was designed to compare uncertainty under three study and retrieval conditions carried out in a single session; study-restudy-restudy, study-test-test with feedback and study-test-test without feedback. In this first session, 105 Swedish-Swahili word-pairs were presented to each participant. Participants then made judgments of learning on the word pairs. Subsequently, participants either re-studied the word-pair, were tested on the pair via cued recall and given feedback or tested without feedback. Participants were then tested in cued recall tests on the word pairs two hours and one week after the learning session, respectively. Ten participants were tested during three sessions which were administered on a web-based platform. The result indicate that no test-effect was found, and participants scored highest in the restudy condition at the cued recall tests. Judgment of learning score was a significant predictor of final cued recall scores on the final test. / I den här Kandidat uppsatsen görs ett försök att utvärdera hur känslan av osäkerhet att påverka test-effekten. Ett experiment designades för att utvärdera tre olika conditions, en studie-studie-studie, en studie-test-test med feedback och enstudie-test-test utan feedbacki en experimentell inom grupp design. Deltagarna ombads mellan delarna skatta sin skala av säkerhet på att kunna göra en framgångsrik återkallning efter en vecka. Allt deltagande var web baserat. Tio deltagare deltog i studien och de testades under tre olika tillfällen. Första tillfället med tre olika conditions, sedan med två uppföljande test tillfällen. Den första efter två timmar och ett avslutande test efter en vecka. Deltagarna testades på 105 ordpar Swahili-Svenska. Resultatet visar att ingen test-effekt uppnåddes och deltagarna nådde högst resultat på upprepad studie alternativet. Själv skattningen på deltagarnas skala av säkerhet var signifikant som indikator på korrekt återkallning efter en vecka i de två upprepad test delarna.

Yes / The introduction in the early 1990s of the world wide web was a significant factor in the creation of a global information society, allowing new possibilities to work, entertain and communicate, from home, at the workplace or on the move. In recent years, there have been significant advances in information technology (IT), while a new generation of applications that are able to harness the power of the world wide web has been introduced under the banner of Web 2.0. The increased capabilities of IT and the nature of Web 2.0 applications have attracted interest from the academic community as a means of enhancing the delivery of higher education. This paper considers the implications of introducing technology into the higher education sector from the perspectives of academic staff and students, with particular emphasis on the use of technology and Web 2.0 applications, and the relationship between technology and teaching and learning.

This dissertation provides initial empirical evidence for Expectancy Value Theory for Help Sources and generates design recommendations for online courses based on the newfound understanding between theory and student behavior. My high-level research goals are pursued in the context of help seeking in the presence of reputation systems in MOOC discussion forums. Educational technology can be intentionally designed and introduced in such a way as to maintain the benefits of existing technology while reducing negative impact on learning-relevant behaviors. I do this through the lens of student expectancy and values for the help source, and costs of pursuing that help. Within this thesis I present three online survey experiments, one is intended to provide empirical evidence for the connection between Expectancy Value Theory for Help Sources and student help seeking outcomes. The remaining two survey experiments are designed to further investigate the results of a system for help exchange through the lens of Expectancy Value Theory for Help Sources. The first survey supports the existence of beliefs for help sources, although careful design of value manipulations is necessary to isolate value beliefs from expectancy beliefs for the help source. In a field experiment investigating the design of a help exchange system, I explore the connection between common reputation system features and Expectancy Value Theory for Help Sources. This provides support for the theory outside of a controlled laboratory setting. This Quick Helper MOOC Experiment and the supporting Quick Helper Theory Survey Experiment show that voting within a reputation system context decreases the number of peers invited to be helpers possibly through an increase in evaluation anxiety. Help giver badges ca reduce this evaluation anxiety and mitigate the negative impact of voting. I performed a final field experiment in a small private online course to examine these issues in a more naturalistic setting outside of the Quick Helper help exchange system. I explored learning expectancy-emphasizing email prompts and voting in the course discussion forum, and how these manipulations impacted larger, more nuanced dependent variables such as help seeking and learning. Results from this experiment are not as strong as the more tightly controlled survey experiments and Quick Helper MOOC field experiment, but we still see support in the general direction of our original hypotheses. From these experiments I generate a series of design recommendations for instructors of online courses implementing discussion forums: (1) reputation systems can have a positive effect on student engagement in discussion forums, but there may be a negative effect on help seeking and other vulnerable learning-relevant behaviors, (2) The negative impact of evaluation anxiety from voting can be mitigated through the use of either help giver badges or using only upvoting instead of up/downvoting which may reduce evaluation anxiety, and (4) Email prompts with dilute implementation have questionable impact on student contributions in discussion forums.